Towards a circular disruption: On the pivotal role of circular economy policy entrepreneurs

Abstract

The shift towards sustainable development is argued to be achieved by a circular disruption triggered or supported by circular economy (CE) policies. CE policies can pressure the disruption of currently predominant linear socio-technical systems across sectors towards a circular paradigm. Knowledge on how these policies appear on the agenda is essential to accelerate the circular disruption. Several works highlight the importance of policy entrepreneurs as agenda setters. However, they were not explored by the scholarly community on CE yet. Therefore, this article analyses the characteristics and strategies of CE policy entrepreneurs in Portugal as a circular frontrunner in the European Union (EU). Two groups of policy entrepreneurs were distinguished based on their different characteristics and strategies. Successfully driving the adoption of national CE policies required ambitious, tenacious and perfectionist CE expert(s) who create a CE vision, derive concrete solutions and gather support for their ideas, the CE initiator. Influencing CE implementation and evaluation required politically savvy CE implementers who openly and tenaciously develop projects and secure the continuous development of the policy.